They’ve been whining about the Freedom of Information Act again. Which gave me an idea, as I read this fascinating thread. Someone has managed to get the Ministry of Defence lessons-learned report on the 2007 incident when the Iranians took a boat’s crew from HMS Cornwall prisoner. That was the one with the iPods, if…
Read More Best Of FOIAWhile I’m clearing up things I drafted but didn’t have time to post, I took this photo at the Musée des Confluences in Lyon earlier this year. As you can see, the museum seems to think it is appropriate to hang Australian Aboriginal artworks with the dead dinosaur, despite them being contemporary, made by humans…
Read More Those aren’t dinosaurs.Part of the point of this post was that this is, in the end, an awful way to make a decision. Yesterday I was arguing about devolution to Yorkshire, again, and my opponent, Jonn Elledge, kept coming out with the same point. Manchester has signed! Don’t be left behind! This is something, not nothing! Hurry…
Read More Don’t buy politics the way you wouldn’t buy electricityI do wonder what Tom Barry would have made about this photo. All that money we spent on converting the Olympic Stadium to be football-ready for West Ham, and the new seating is literally a bunch of scaffolding.
Read More An exampleThinking about this, does anyone know what or who the patient zero for the idea that “mayors” solve something in British politics might be? I remember it as an early Blairite thing, but thinking about it, the Treasury seems to love it even more than DCLG. That said, it seems to have become part of…
Read More What is the source for all this mayor stuff?The remarkable thing about this is just what Nigel Seed QC was willing to consider normal. “On the day of her trial there was a large number of reporters at the court,” he said. “I was informed by the police that this was because the defendant, who had been on bail, had let it be…
Read More Nothing to see here.Everyone now knows who The Tory was. No. Everyone now knows that the idea of The Tory is obsolete, as opposed to an open-ended search for more perpetrators. I think it’s worth flagging up this post that ran in the Daily Beast on the same night the Mirror broke the Ted Heath story. The first…
Read More eternal #savileweekThat blog post about Kids Company is back online, however I have still to track down the quote I wanted.
Read More admin noteWhat to make of this story? Camila Batmanghelidjh has been basically forced out of Kids’ Company after the Cabinet Office wanted to know what it’s been doing with the money. Much detail is available in a Buzzfeed piece of the sort you’re meant to think Buzzfeed doesn’t do. She, of course, blames austerity, cuts, etc.…
Read More Chancers, respectability politics, and IDS: A4e, Kids Co, and TrussellJust a final thought about the Harman/Welfare Bill saga. My original thinking was that it was all about Labour/SNP politics, and I kind of expected a U-turn once it became clear the SNP would be available and would vote no. So, look how that turned out. Apparently it was all about looking “weak on welfare”.…
Read More Weak, weak, weak.